A lot of people on this board and elsewhere have pointed out that Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky that refuses to issue marriage certificates to gay couples, is somewhat hypocritical in applying her morality given her philandering history. It seems to me this analysis is pretty spot on as the bible (to my uneducated eyes) condemns adultery much more strongly than homosexuality. Two of the ten commandments are relevant, one prohibits the act and one prohibits even thinking about it. Other examples of Christians ignoring these commandments while calling others on their lack of moral judgement or family values are common: Politicians Newt Gingrich, John McCain, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, David Vitter, Bob Barr, Helen Chenoweth, etc… The list goes on and on. And note, I could easily come up with a similar list of Democratic politicians that have engaged in similar offenses, but the difference is they do not lecture others on their moral compass. We could also examine the Ashley Madison data and count how many church leaders of various evangelical institutions were paying members and it is substantial.
So why do Christians, meaning the common folk who vote in elections and support people like Kim Davis, ignore this discrepancy? Is it because they don’t really care about Christian values and are just homophobic bigots? Or do they also take a stand against adultery and I am just not seeing it?
It’s all about being “forgiven.” Adultery in most of these cases are in the past, while being gay constitutes constantly sinning unrepentantly in the present. As a Christian, I disagree with this outlook because it denies responsibility for the former and, in my opinion, a warped view of the greatest commandment Jesus spoke of for the latter. Also, adultery in the church is seen very differently when it’s actually happening.
According to Protestant teaching sin is sin. Adultery is not worse than homosexuality nor is it any better. Also according to teaching when one repents of sin, they are cleansed of that sin. According to what I have read Kim Davis was not a Christian when she went through with her various marriages and divorces. This would mean that when she converted she repented of those sins and has been forgiven of them. Thus she is not being hypocritical.
As for why Christians vote for people like Ms Davis there are several reasons. In her case her mother was clerk before her and I guess many people in that area know her family and voted for her for that reason. I am sure many Democrats voted for her out of party loyalty. Others out of respect for the job she had done. I am not sure how well known her personal life was to the voters of that county since local office holders usually do not have the interest in them to merit the scrutiny of the press.
Furthermore voting for a person does not mean endorsing their lifestyle. I thought Newt Gingrich was a very good Speaker of the House for several years but I would not want him to marry into my family and generally do not think he is a good person for the way he treated his wives. However if he were running for Congress I would definitely consider voting for him because I am not voting for a pastor of role model but a member of the legislature. Therefore the most important thing to consider is what kind of legislation they can get passed. Having a candidate who is a good person is preferable but being an effective legislator is the most important thing in a candidate.
The truth or otherwise of a moral position is independent of the actions of those who advocate it.
Martin Luther King Jr. was entirely correct that blacks in America are entitled to equal treatment under the law. He was also a plagiarist, adulterer, and wife beater. Nonetheless, it remains entirely correct that blacks in America are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
No, really. He assembled the modern Republican party by adding the Christian right, but was divorced. To beat Carter, the Republicans needed Reagan. To accept Reagan, they had to drop their issue with Divorce.
It’s easy for people to condemn homosexuality, because most people aren’t tempted by it. The average Joe Homophobe can loudly condemn it, and know that he’ll never be drawn into temptation by it.
But many people, including many Christians, will get divorced. The average church member will either have been divorced or know someone close to them who has been divorced. So most churches couldn’t preach against it without driving a large number of members away.
And there are some sins that could be preached on, like greed or gluttony or indifference to the poor that aren’t focused on by some Christians, because they could then feel guilty about their own lives and what they are doing or not doing. But with those you could at least pretend to be better than you are, and think about how you’re not greedy and you do care about the poor, and ignore how your actions don’t reflect that. But a divorce is harder to ignore or pretend away.
This is the kind of thing I am really trying to get at. I can understand wanting to vote for Newt Gingrich because your are a supporter of his policies and ideology, this is a sufficient and completely rational stance. What bothers me is the same people who were enthusiastically voting for Newt for these reasons were claiming that they could never vote for Bill Clinton because of his philandering ways. My aunt, an evangelical from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, would espouse the view that she could never vote for Bill Clinton because of his character but happily supported Newt because of his ideology never seeing the hypocrisy of this stance. I can understand not liking Bill’s policies and thus not supporting him for this reason, but for a lot of these folks it seems to be all about character for the people they oppose and never about character for the people they support.
Yeah, but that particular “sin” often goes totally ignored. I think I’ve only ever read about one divorced person remarrying, then divorcing and remarrying their first spouse because the second union was considered adultery. I’m sure there’s plenty more, but in my almost fifty years of life, that’s been the only one. And for the record, I think it was some minor country-ish female singer from the 60s - 70s.
Two issues. One, you cannot get everything you want in politics.
Two, there are far fewer Christians than most people realize. Most recent surveys say that roughly a third of Americans attend church on a weekly basis. Probably no more than a third of those are actually Christians.
Just because you call yourself a Christian does not make you one, any more than calling yourself a car makes you a car. It’s highly unlikely that any of the politicians mentioned in the OP have ever been Christians, regardless of what they claim.
1: Jesus did not condemn the adulteress, and made the pharisees who did accuse her go away (John 8:2-11), His final words "Go now and leave your life of sin.” could even be interpreted to leave your horrible marriage and be with the one God has made you to love, and this is biblically supportable using other books of the Bible to this condition (it does not mention this person, but the act). So God understand the issue and the condition of humanity and is cool with it.
2: Some hetrosexuals don’t understand what homosexuality is they don’t understand how such a attraction can come about, so as we make God in our image, neither does God understand how homosexuality came about, so must be sinful. Added to that Paul calls it basically ‘unnatural’. Ro 1:27.
So it boils down to I understand how we can fall into adultery, because I’ve done it, so God understands and gives examples of forgiveness and even lack of condemnation, even reward, but I can’t understand how we can fall into homosexuality and God surely doesn’t either and there is no mention of anything homosexual that seems to point to some sort of pass people get (except for the whole cross thing, but that obviously doesn’t include that unnatural act)
I understand it because to me philandering is different than being a serial divorcee. Not in the moral sense but in a character sense. Gingrich seemed like a guy with a short attention span. He is teaching courses, writing books, doing dinosaur digs, talking politics, just a whirlwind of activity. He throws himself into something is great at it for a time and then get bored of it. The same with his marriages, he seems to get bored with his old wife and want go dive into a new relationship. That makes him a bad husband and person but I feel I could trust him to do something as long as it was not a long term commitment. Clinton on the other hand was cheating on his wife all the time, lying about it, and having other people lie about it for him. He never seemed at all sorry and never seemed to learn anything from his past. I could never trust anyone who has shown that level of dishonesty. Since trust is so important in a politician Gingrich’s sins were disappointing and I am glad he is out of politics but Clinton’s were disqualifying and I would not trust him enough to run small town sheriff’s office.
I’m not going to defend Ms. Davis’ actions as county clerk. If she believes that she is unable to carry out the functions of her office because of her religious beliefs, she should resign, not insist that she be allowed to pick and choose those functions of her office she will perform.
That said, I’ll give her a pass on her marital history.
First, the belief that remarriage after divorce constitutes adultery is more of a Catholic belief than a general Christian belief, and Ms. Davis is not a Catholic.
Second, many faithful Christians have sinned, and will sin again. In fact, all of them (or us, as I count myself as a Christian).
I’m perfectly willing to believe that Ms. Davis has repented of her sins of the past, and has firmly resolved not to sin again.
Look, all Christians know (or should know) that we are imperfect creatures. Everyone has done wrong, and will do wrong again. No exceptions. We know this.